1. Busy Teachers Café:http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/ Busy Teachers Café is a K-6 resource for the “busy teacher”. It offers ideas, lessons, units, free printables, and much more. Teachers can even create their own WebPages, and blogs. Grade level: K-12, teacher
2. 4 Teachers.org (Teach with Technology):http://4teachers.org/ 4 Teachers.org is a site to help teachers integrate technology into their classrooms by offering a variety of online tools and resources. This site links teachers to ready-to-use Web lessons, rubrics, quizzes, and classroom calendars. Some of the tools are also for student use that the teacher can access. Grade level: K-12, teacher, student
3. Merriam Webster’s Word Central: http://www.wordcentral.com/home.html Merriam’s Webster Word Central is an online kid friendly dictionary. It offers definitions in kid language for easy understanding of students. It allows students to do a dictionary search, a thesaurus search, or search for rhyming words. Grade level: K-6, student
4. Read-Write-Think: http://www.readwritethink.org/ Read-Write-Think offers teachers and students a large variety of resources for reading and language arts instruction. For teachers there are free lessons and web resources. For students there are many student materials from games to organizers to help develop their reading and language arts skills. Grade level: K-12, teacher, student
5. Game Classroom: http://www.gameclassroom.com Game classroom is a site totally devoted to educational games. The games are broken down into grade level and then into concept. The games do a great job of keeping student interest. They are solid games that have a purpose. A few of the games on this site are multi-player and involve collaboration (higher order thinking games). This site is a great one to share with parents. It's a great site that can easily be accessed at home as well as in school.Grade Level:Educators, students, parents, grades K-6
6. Internet 4 Classrooms: http://internet4classrooms.com Internet 4 Classrooms is a site that keeps the not so tech savvy teacher in mind. The site offers technology help, technology ideas, and guides the user to fantastic free internet resources. While exploring the site, you'll be sure to see the wonderful icons the site uses. They use these handy icons for quicker navigation on site. This site also offers great technology tutorials. This is a perfect site for an educator who may fear the use of the internet in the classroom. Grade Level:All educators, grades Pre-K-12
7. PBS Teachers: http://pbs.org/teachers/ PBS Teachers offers a wide range of resources to a variety of educators. Two items on this site really stand out. One is how up to date the resources on this website are. They do a great job of giving a teacher ideas to teach a fairly new topics (i.e. September 11, 2001, The War in Iraq). You'll also notice a teacher discussion board. What makes this discussion unique is that it is a nation wide discussion board. As educators, we enjoy seeing what other teachers are doing in their classrooms. When reading specific discussion board topics, you really get a sense of how education is different in each state. Take some time to navigate PBS Teachers, you'll be sure to find valuable classroom resources or find out what teachers in Iowa are up to. Grade Level:All educators, grades Pre-K-12
8.Folger Shakespeare Library:http://www.folger.edu This is my favorite on-line site for finding new strategies for teaching Shakespeare to my sophomores. In the past I have used the lesson plans and videos for Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and King Lear. In addition, I have made Folger’s study guides available to my students and have downloaded a number of primary resources, from language glossaries, to historical context. Now that I am becoming a bit more comfortable with the internet, I hope to learn how to use Folger’s “Blogs for Teachers” as well as their material on YouTube and iTunes. (K-12)
9.Shakespeare in the Classroom:http://www.pbs.org/shakespeare/educators/ What I like most about this site is the fact that information about Shakespeare’s life and the Renaissance are incorporated into the analysis and explanation of the plays. This site offers well-performed vignettes from each of Shakespeare’s works as well as commentary on various theatrical productions. There is so much to download from this site that I have to be careful not to overdo it and inundate the kids with masses of hand-outs. (K-12)
10.EDSITEment: http://edsitement.neh.gov This National Endowment for the Humanities site provides lesson plans as well as student resources. Resources here include critical analyses of great pieces of literature as well as a storehouse of links. I especially like the sections on making inferences and drawing conclusions. (9-12)
11. Archival Sound Recordings: http://sounds.bl.uk In studying all genres of English literature, from plays, to novels and short stories, to poetry, reading aloud and assuming the “voice” of the speaker adds enormously to both understanding and enjoyment. This site allows the user to browse for accents and dialects via, map, county, and/or date in history. Last week, as my advanced sophomores were attempting to act out the scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which the laborers are attempting to put on a play themselves, listening to the actual intonations and pronunciations offered on this site was extremely helpful (and funny!) I use this frequently to allow my students to imitate the masters and to comment upon how hearing language can be so much more effective than reading alone.
English Websites.
1. Busy Teachers Café: http://www.busyteacherscafe.com/ Busy Teachers Café is a K-6 resource for the “busy teacher”. It offers ideas, lessons, units, free printables, and much more. Teachers can even create their own WebPages, and blogs. Grade level: K-12, teacher
2. 4 Teachers.org (Teach with Technology): http://4teachers.org/ 4 Teachers.org is a site to help teachers integrate technology into their classrooms by offering a variety of online tools and resources. This site links teachers to ready-to-use Web lessons, rubrics, quizzes, and classroom calendars. Some of the tools are also for student use that the teacher can access. Grade level: K-12, teacher, student
3. Merriam Webster’s Word Central: http://www.wordcentral.com/home.html Merriam’s Webster Word Central is an online kid friendly dictionary. It offers definitions in kid language for easy understanding of students. It allows students to do a dictionary search, a thesaurus search, or search for rhyming words. Grade level: K-6, student
4. Read-Write-Think: http://www.readwritethink.org/ Read-Write-Think offers teachers and students a large variety of resources for reading and language arts instruction. For teachers there are free lessons and web resources. For students there are many student materials from games to organizers to help develop their reading and language arts skills. Grade level: K-12, teacher, student
5. Game Classroom: http://www.gameclassroom.com Game classroom is a site totally devoted to educational games. The games are broken down into grade level and then into concept. The games do a great job of keeping student interest. They are solid games that have a purpose. A few of the games on this site are multi-player and involve collaboration (higher order thinking games). This site is a great one to share with parents. It's a great site that can easily be accessed at home as well as in school. Grade Level: Educators, students, parents, grades K-6
6. Internet 4 Classrooms: http://internet4classrooms.com Internet 4 Classrooms is a site that keeps the not so tech savvy teacher in mind. The site offers technology help, technology ideas, and guides the user to fantastic free internet resources. While exploring the site, you'll be sure to see the wonderful icons the site uses. They use these handy icons for quicker navigation on site. This site also offers great technology tutorials. This is a perfect site for an educator who may fear the use of the internet in the classroom. Grade Level: All educators, grades Pre-K-12
7. PBS Teachers: http://pbs.org/teachers/ PBS Teachers offers a wide range of resources to a variety of educators. Two items on this site really stand out. One is how up to date the resources on this website are. They do a great job of giving a teacher ideas to teach a fairly new topics (i.e. September 11, 2001, The War in Iraq). You'll also notice a teacher discussion board. What makes this discussion unique is that it is a nation wide discussion board. As educators, we enjoy seeing what other teachers are doing in their classrooms. When reading specific discussion board topics, you really get a sense of how education is different in each state. Take some time to navigate PBS Teachers, you'll be sure to find valuable classroom resources or find out what teachers in Iowa are up to. Grade Level: All educators, grades Pre-K-12
8. Folger Shakespeare Library: http://www.folger.edu This is my favorite on-line site for finding new strategies for teaching Shakespeare to my sophomores. In the past I have used the lesson plans and videos for Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and King Lear. In addition, I have made Folger’s study guides available to my students and have downloaded a number of primary resources, from language glossaries, to historical context. Now that I am becoming a bit more comfortable with the internet, I hope to learn how to use Folger’s “Blogs for Teachers” as well as their material on YouTube and iTunes. (K-12)
9. Shakespeare in the Classroom: http://www.pbs.org/shakespeare/educators/ What I like most about this site is the fact that information about Shakespeare’s life and the Renaissance are incorporated into the analysis and explanation of the plays. This site offers well-performed vignettes from each of Shakespeare’s works as well as commentary on various theatrical productions. There is so much to download from this site that I have to be careful not to overdo it and inundate the kids with masses of hand-outs. (K-12)
10. EDSITEment: http://edsitement.neh.gov This National Endowment for the Humanities site provides lesson plans as well as student resources. Resources here include critical analyses of great pieces of literature as well as a storehouse of links. I especially like the sections on making inferences and drawing conclusions. (9-12)
11. Archival Sound Recordings: http://sounds.bl.uk In studying all genres of English literature, from plays, to novels and short stories, to poetry, reading aloud and assuming the “voice” of the speaker adds enormously to both understanding and enjoyment. This site allows the user to browse for accents and dialects via, map, county, and/or date in history. Last week, as my advanced sophomores were attempting to act out the scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream in which the laborers are attempting to put on a play themselves, listening to the actual intonations and pronunciations offered on this site was extremely helpful (and funny!) I use this frequently to allow my students to imitate the masters and to comment upon how hearing language can be so much more effective than reading alone.